


12 months of sleeping

by Teatrolley



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Angst, Anniversary, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Relationship Study, a year in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 23:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: The first time that Isak wakes up in his bed and Even isthereit’s because he’s depressed.It’s a turning point. That morning he tells Even about the future, and how uncertain it is, and it’s true: They don’t know what’s going to happen.They just know that this is day one.Or: A year in the life of Isak and Even





	12 months of sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> so. just like i promised, i just can't stop myself, so it's time to go back to canon for a bit
> 
> hope you enjoy!

**December 10th 2016**

The first time that Isak wakes up in his bed and Even is _there_ it’s because he’s depressed. 

It’s a turning point. It’s a last page, in a way, in the book of who they were when they were becoming them, and it’s a first page, too, then, in the book of what they become. That morning he tells Even about the future, and how uncertain it is, and it’s true: They don’t know what’s going to happen.

They just know that this is day one.

**January 1st 2017**

It’s January first, and Isak is _drunk._

He stumbles a little, holding onto the doorknob of his bedroom door to steady himself as he tries to pull his left shoe off. Tries, being the operative word, and after he’s been unsuccessful for a while he gives up instead.

“I–” he tries and Even, who’s been toeing out of his own shoes just fine, turns back to him, fondness all over his face. “I’m… drunk.”

“You’re drunk?” Even repeats, brows raised, grinning and crowding in closer which, yeah– Isak likes that. Isak glances up at him, leans into the way Even holds onto his biceps, blinks out his smile. 

“Hm,” he says, content, now. “I’m drunk.”

“You’re sweet,” Even says and Isak, a little shyly, dips his chin as he giggles. Even laughs, too, and leans in to kiss his temple. “Oh, you’re so sweet. I love you.”

“I love _you_ ,” Isak says, and Even laughs again.

“Oh you do, do you?” he says, and grins when Isak nods. “That’s great, baby. Are you going to take your jacket off, or do you need my help?”

“Help me,” Isak says, and sighs into it when Even does, shrugging it off his shoulders before throwing it to the floor. “And the shoes, too.” 

Guiding him to sit on the edge of the bed, Even helps him with them as well, pulling them off his heels before Isak shakes them the rest of the way off himself.

“And the jeans.”

Even glances at him with a smirk.

“And the jeans?” he says.

“Mm-hm.”

Shaking his head first, Even does reach up to help Isak undo his belt, as Isak lies back on the mattress. When Even grabs onto to the waistband of the jeans and pulls them down, Isak lifts his hips to help him. Then, reaching out to Even’s shirt, he uses his grasp on it to pull Even up for a kiss.

“You’re sweet,” Even repeats, from earlier. Isak reaches down to tug his shirt out of his trousers.

“I want you.”

“You’re so drunk, baby,” Even says, but pulls his own shirt off over his head anyway, when Isak keeps tugging at it. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“We could try.”

Even snorts, but shakes his head.

“No,” he says. Isak pouts a little, huffs out a breath because he’s offended, and rolls away from Even and onto his stomach instead. Even just chuckles, reaching up to kiss his shoulder, so after a moment Isak rolls around to face him again, finds his cheeks, and cups them.

“Baby?” he says.

“Hm?”

“Will you get me some water?”

Even smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll get you some water.”

By the time he comes back it’s not just water he has with him, but an aspirin, too. Isak is under the duvet, now, head spinning just a little bit and whole body aching in that post night-out kind of way where he just can’t wait to go to sleep, but he hasn’t, yet. He’s been waiting for Even.

“Here you go,” Even says, handing the glass and the pill to Isak, who sits up a little to take and drink it, before he falls back down onto the mattress and waits for Even to get his jeans off, too, before he crawls in under the duvet with him. The moment he does, Isak rolls into his space and cuddles up to him, head on his chest, and breathes out a content sigh. “You feel okay?”

“Hm,” Isak hums, nodding a little. “I love you.”

Even dips down, to kiss the top of his hair, before running his fingers through it.

“I love you, too.”

**February 10th 2017**

It’s February, and Isak’s cough startles them both awake.

“Sorry,” he says, after he’s done coughing, sitting up in the bed, Even’s palm sliding up and down and over his naked back, rubbing it. He coughs again, just a little, triggered by the speaking. “Fuck, sorry.”

“How long has it been now?” Even asks, still rubbing his back. When Isak looks at him he’s bleary-eyed, hair in disarray from sleeping and not at all from Isak’s hands, because dying kind of puts a pause in your libido, which Isak is a bit annoyed about, honestly. “A week?”

“Yeah,” Isak says, lying back down on the bed, but that makes him have to cough again so, a moment later, he’s back in his sitting position and, God, he’s so fucking tired of being ill. 

He sighs. His throat aches so horribly, right where his tonsils would be if they hadn’t been cut out of him when he was six. Even keeps rubbing his back, before he leans over to turn on the bedside lamp.

“I’ll go make you some tea,” he says.

“No,” Isak says, reaching out for him to stop him in his tracks. “God, I feel so bad that I keep waking you up.”

“It’s fine,” Even says. “I mean, yesterday I almost fell asleep at lunch, but–”

Isak chuckles. Even does, too, coming in to kiss his cheek.

“God,” Isak says. “This fucking sucks.”

“I know,” Even says. “It’s gotta pass soon, though. I hope it passes soon, at least, because otherwise we’re both going to die of sleep deprivation.”

“Can you die from that?” Isak asks, feeling a little better now that he's feeling distracted. Even shrugs.

“I don’t know. Maybe we'll start hallucinating that guy from the– what’s his name?”

“Freddy Krueger?”

“Yeah.” Even grins. “That guy. Sounds like a fun time.”

“You know, one time," Isak says. "I was sitting with Mamma and Pappa in the living room of our old house when she wasn’t doing so well, and then she looked to the corner of the room and was like, _watch out for the man in the red_.”

“No?” Even says.

“Yeah” Isak nods. “I almost had a fucking heart-attack, I thought we were going to die.”

Even chuckles. “That’s funny,” he says. “I mean scary, but…”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “It was a little funny.”

“Hm.” Even rubs his back again. “So do you really not want that tea, or?”

“No, I’d like some,” Isak says, and Even nods. “That’d be nice.”

“Okay,” Even says, before leaning down over the side of the bed to grab a hoodie, one of Isak’s, and pull it on, and Isak appreciates him so much. “Be back in a moment, then.”

“Okay,” Isak says, lying back on the pillow as Even pulls his sweatpants on, too, because it’s been fucking freezing lately, all of the snow of the year arriving now, and even five minutes out of bed without clothing on is enough to kill you. “Thank you.”

“’Course,” Even says, by the door, now. When he opens it he does it quietly, to be mindful of the rest of the people in the flat, probably, and Isak smiles a little at that.

“And don’t get killed by Freddy on the way.”

Even flips him off before he goes. Isak laughs.

When, after a while, they try going to sleep again, Even takes Isak’s pillow from beneath his head and places it on top of his own chest. 

“There,” he says. “You always sleep here, anyway, but you’re meant to have your head up high if you want to avoid waking up coughing,” and Isak thinks he’s the best fucking person in the whole world. 

“Thanks,” he says. And when he falls asleep, it’s in Even’s arms.

**March 24th 2017**

It’s March, and Isak rolls away from him, rolling his eyes.

“Even,” he says, and for once he’s actually annoyed. “We can’t keep having this conversation.”

Even, who was lying on his side just a moment before, rises into a sitting position to look at him, surprise in his face, and Isak hates that, actually, God, he hates it, to have ruined the mood, but it’s true: he’s so goddamn tired of having this conversation again and again and again.

“What conversation?” Even asks, and Isak sits up, too, so they’re across from each other. 

“The one about how you’re going to hurt me, and how I’m going to hate you, and how everything is going to suck. I’m tired of it.”

“But,” Even says. “I could hurt you.” Isak has to fight his own sigh. “I _could_. Shouldn’t we talk about that?”

“We _have_ talked about it,” Isak says. “We’ve talked about it a lot. What more is there to say? I won’t hate you. And you won’t hurt me.”

“Isak,” Even says, looking at him. “We don’t know that.”

This time, Isak does sigh, but maybe he’s right, so:

“Okay,” he says. “So we don’t know that.” He looks at Even, who looks back. “You could fucking well end up breaking my heart for all I know,” he goes on. “But we _don’t_ know that. So what are going to do about it now? We can’t do anything.”

“We can,” Even says. “We can talk about it.”

“But we _do_ ,” Isak says, and God, it’s not often that Even frustrates him but right now he’s really annoying. “We have conversations about it. We’ve made a plan, I have your parents numbers, I have the number of your GP, we’ve talked about it. I don’t know what else we can do to make you stop worrying about it all the time.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Even says. “It’s not like the bipolar will ever go away–”

“I _know_.”

“And I’ve watched so many people grow hardened because of it. Sonja did.”

“But I’m not Sonja,” Isak says.

“I know.” 

Even sighs, looking at him, looking like he’s frustrated, too and, well: that makes two of them. Then he sighs a second time, before softening a bit.

“I just,” he says. “Want to make sure that you know you don’t have to stay if I’m hurting you.” Isak’s heart sinks, just a little. “That you can leave, if it’s for the best.”

“But I don’t want to leave,” Isak says, a little bit desperate and, at this point, Even looks a little sad. “And that’s not what I want you to _say, God_.” Isak almost wants to cry a little bit. “If we run into problems we break up? That’s what that sounds like.”

“No,” Even says. “Isak–”

“I don’t want to break up,” Isak says. “Ever. I don’t ever want to break up with you. We’re moving in together.”

“Isak–”

“And it shouldn’t even be about that, anyway. You shouldn’t be saying that if you hurt me I should leave, you should be saying that if you hurt me we can talk about it and try to come up with a solution. That we’ll fix it.”

“I’m sorry,” Even says, and a single tear falls from Isak’s waterline down his cheek. “Baby. I didn’t know that’s what that sounded like to you.”

“I just–” Isak says. “It’s not a fixed state, you know, hurting someone. It’s not a personality trait, it’s an action, and the only time you’ve really hurt me was when you kept information from me and decided on my behalf that it would be better to leave.”

“I’m sorry–”

“All I want from you is that you talk to me, and that we figure things out together.”

“Okay,” Even says. Reaching out, he takes Isak’s hand between both of his own, and kisses the back of it. “Isak, baby, listen to me.” Even finds his gaze, and holds it. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Isak asks.

“I can do that,” Even says, still looking at him. Then tilts his head, fondness on his face. “And not just because you’re crying on me.” Isak snorts, weakly. “And breaking my heart a little bit. But because you’re making some pretty good points.”

“I just think that it’s useless to worry about you hurting me,” Isak says. “Because we don’t know what will happen. And if it does, if you do hurt me…”

“Then I shouldn’t get wrapped up in all of my guilt but try to talk it through with you instead?”

“Yeah,” Isak says.

“So it won’t happen again?”

“Yeah.” 

Isak nods, tension seeping out of him, now, and relief is setting in instead because, to his surprise, Even _understood_. Even understood, and Even listened, and Even won’t be going anywhere. 

A moment later, Isak hugs him. 

“Thank you,” he says, into Even’s skin, when Even hugs him back. “For listening.”

Even rubs his back. Kisses his temple.

“You should have told me,” he says. “I didn’t know that’s what it meant to you.”

“Yeah,” Isak says, pulling back a little to meet Even’s eyes as he dries his own with the back of his sleeve, rolling his eyes a bit about the tears. “I will next time.”

Even smiles. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay.”

Again, Even kisses the back of his hand and, then, a moment later, they’re kissing each other, smiling into it just a little bit. 

After a while, they pull each other back down, so they’re lying across from each other again. Before they stop kissing entirely Even runs the tip of his nose over Isak’s. Then moves out far enough to rest their foreheads together. 

“That wasn’t too bad, though,” Even says. “For a first fight.” Sighing a little at him but fondly, now, Isak rolls his eyes. “Probably good we had it before we signed the lease, too.”

“That wasn’t a fight,” Isak says.

“No?”

Instead of answering, Isak scoots over into Even’s space and rolls them over so he’s on top of him, looking down, and Even grins. His palms slide up and down Isak’s forearms, where they’re lying on Even’s chest, and Isak wants him, now, wants the intimacy of being with him on top of everything that just happened, wants–

To kiss him, so he does.

Even grins into that, too.

“No,” Isak says.

“Hm.” Even leans up, rising off the pillow a little, and kisses him back. “This is a very post-fight move, though. Wooing me.” He smirks. “Trying to get a leg over.”

“You’re the one who’ll be getting the leg over,” Isak says, and Even chuckles, before he rolls them over, so he’s the one on top.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, teasing smirk on his face, and kisses Isak a few more times, before he kisses down Isak’s neck to his chest, instead, and then: “Well. If you insist.”

**April 10th 2017**

It’s April, and it’s the first night in their new place.

Earlier, there was beer, and pizza, and the boys, helping them put their IKEA bed together or, rather, putting it together for them, as the two of them unpacked their kitchen with long-winded conversations about where it’s best to put the plates and where it’s best to put the glasses that both end in kisses, but now–

Now it’s night, and they’re passing the champagne bottle back and forth between them, drinking straight from the bottle, sitting on the floor.

Well. Sitting all up in each other’s spaces, on the floor.

“You wanna go flee-market hunting on Saturday?” Isak asks, sitting in-between Even’s legs, facing him, passing the bottle to him. When they’re not drinking, they're leaning in close.

“Hm,” Even says. “Should we get ugly things or pretty things?”

“Ugly things?" Isak asks. "Why, Even, would we get things that are ugly?”

Even giggles. He’s a little bit tipsy, like he hardly ever is.

“You know what I meant,” he says. “Things with character. You know, charming things. Quaint.”

“Oh,” Isak says. “So, like you?”

“ _What_?”

“No–” Isak breaks off giggling, at Even’s offended look. “I meant charming, like you.”

“Mm-hm," Even says. "Sure you did. You really do hear the truth from drunk people, huh?”

“Shut up,” Isak says, and they both chuckle into each other’s mouths when they kiss. “You’re so hot, baby. You know I think you’re so hot.”

“Hm,” Even says, lying down on the floor, now, and tugging Isak with him, until they’re lying on top of each other. Still kissing. “So what you’re saying is we should get furniture that’s hot?”

Isak chuckles.

“Mm,” he says. “We shouldn’t even get furniture, actually. We should just spend all of out money on posters of naked men–” Even laughs. “And cover the walls with them.”

“So,” Even says. “A brothel?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm.”

Grinning into each other’s mouths, they kiss again.

“No,” Isak says, then. “I think we should get some nice lights. And a table we can eat dinner at together. And I think that we should decorate a wall with your drawings. And that we only need to get one dresser, because we share all of our clothes anyway.”

“You’ve thought about it?” Even says. And Isak shrugs, running their noses together.

“It’s our home.”

Outside of their balcony door that they opened because it’s spring, now, and getting warm, cars drive by, but in here it’s just the two of them. At Isak’s words Even tilts his head with something beautiful on his face, and reaches up to fix the hair behind his ear.

“You’re so romantic,” he says, and maybe Isak is, but it’s also just the truth, so he shrugs, again.

“I love you,” he says. “Man of my life. How’s that for romantic?”

Even smiles.

“Ten out of ten,” he says, and Isak smiles, too. “I love you.” Again, Even touches his hair, watching him. “And I’m so happy right now.”

“Me, too,” Isak says, and they both grin, and, together, then: 

They kiss.

**May 12th 2017**

It’s May, and Isak takes a fist to the face by one of Even’s best friends and Even once tried to kill himself.

It’s the first time Isak has felt sad in their shared bed.

Tonight they’re not alone in bed. There’s the ice packet, too, that Isak is holding to his eye that will most definitely bruise, anyway, and there’s Isak’s anger. Not at Even. At everything else. 

As much as he can, without hurting his bruised nose or his blue eye, Isak is lying on his side, facing Even, who has that pain in his eyes again that’s so deep Isak feels a little like he’s drowning in it, but he’s still reaching out to caress Even’s cheek with the back of his hand.

“So now’s one of those times I feel like I’m hurting you,” Even says, and Isak closes his eyes. Then opens them again. 

When their eyes meet Even looks to the sky, but not like he’s thankful, now, but like he’s trying not to cry. Isak wants to kill everything that’s ever hurt him, but it’s not like when Jonas got beat up, this time. You can’t fight this with your fists, no matter how much Isak’s been trying.

Tonight they can’t fight this at all, actually. All they can do is wait it out. All they can do is go through it. 

“You’re not hurting me,” he says. “But it does hurt.”

Even closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, a whisper so desperate it breaks Isak’s heart, but Isak still keeps touching his cheek until he opens his eyes again. 

So what if it takes a while? He’d keep touching his cheek until the day he dies if that’s what it was going to take.

“It’s okay,” he says, smiling at Even now and making sure that he sees it, taking Even’s hand and placing it back on his own cheek where it hasn’t been this whole night, fighting for him with everything he’s got. “Tomorrow is a new day.”

Even smiles. It’s so, so tiny, just the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. But it is a smile.

“You’re very wise,” he says, and Isak smiles, too. 

“Hm,” he says. “The master of being wise?”

This time, when Even smiles, it’s bigger.

“Oh, baby,” he says, and scoots in closer, so Isak puts an arm around him and tugs him in until his face is buried in his own old hoodie that Isak is wearing, now. “This is really, really hard.”

“Yeah,” Isak says, but Even has smiled now, and it’s true what they’re agreeing on, there will be another day tomorrow, so his chest feels a little easier now. “It is.”

Even sighs. Sighs like he’s breathing everything out of him, sighs in that heavy way he only has when he looks like everything is heavy on him, and Isak dips down to kiss the top of his hair.

“When we wake up, though,” Even says, and Isak nods into his hair.

“Yeah,” he says. “When we wake up, though.”

When he falls asleep, half an hour or so after Even does, it’s with that thought still in his head.

**June 21st 2017**

It’s June, and it’s Isak’s birthday and Even loves him, probably, more than anyone has ever loved anyone else before.

“I can’t believe,” Isak says, into their kiss, as they stumble in through the front door, “that you put a clip of us having sex in the video.”

“Oh, it was hardly explicit,” Even says, crowding Isak up against their closed front door and grinning into the kiss, helping Isak a little as Isak tries getting the denim jacket off of him. “No one will know.”

“Hm,” Isak says, throwing his jacket to the hallway floor along with Even’s, and pulling him towards the room with their bed. “Right.”

“We can film the proper version next, if you’re into that,” Even says, already grinning in that wide way he has whenever he teases, and Isak is so fucking into him and grinning, too, when Even pushes him gently onto the bed and follows. “I’m sure there’s a market for that.”

“Where’s your phone?” he asks, and Even laughs. 

“You gonna turn it off?”

“Exactly.”

“Lift your hips.”

When Isak does, Even pulls his jeans down, before Isak helps get them the rest of the way off by kicking his feet a bit as he tugs Even’s t-shirt off his head, too. 

“Your jeans,” he complains, then, and lies back to watch it as Even, struggling a bit, gets them off, too, as Isak finishes with his own t-shirt. “Sexy.”

“Hm,” Even says, crawling up to kiss him, now. “One day I’ll do a striptease for you and you’ll see.”

“Interesting.”

“Mm.”

“Should we listen to birthday sex while we do this?”

Turning away from the kiss, Even laughs.

“I don’t know if that’s a particularly sexy song,” he says. “We could listen to The Weekend?”

“Nah,” Isak says, allowing his hands to roam, now. “Just kiss me.”

Even does.

After, then, Isak keeps lying on top of him, chest to chest and thighs to thighs, touching his face with both of his index fingers, following the patterns of his freckles and the wrinkles that appear when he smiles. They’re both breathing a little heavily, still, and the summer night lives it life outside of their open balcony door just as they live theirs, in here. 

“You know, if you keep touching my face like that after sex we’ll never stop breaking out,” Even says, and Isak snorts.

“We?” he says.

“We share a pillow.”

“Hm.” Isak dips down to kiss him. “I was in the middle of a very content moment, you know.”

“Hm,” Even hums. With the sweetest smile, he reaches up to card his hand through Isak’s hair before leaning up to kiss his cheek right by the corner of his mouth in that way that Isak loves. “You happy with your day?”

“Yeah,” Isak says, and he is. More than he thinks he can even say. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” Even says. “Anything for you.” Again, that teasing smile. “Man of my life.”

Isak smiles. Then Isak kisses him.

**July 19th 2017**

It’s July, and they’re in Morocco with the boys.

They’ve been here for a few days now, have a few days left, and Isak hasn’t been abroad since he was maybe fourteen but he loves it, and he loves that it’s here, with them. Even if their student status does mean that all five of them have to share a cheap hostel room that luckily only has four beds, and even when it does mean that Isak hasn’t had sex for a week.

He comes back into the room after a shower. Everyone but Jonas and Even have left.

“Hey,” Jonas says, quietly, looking up from his phone and getting off of his bed. “Be quiet. Ev fell asleep.” 

“Oh,” Isak says. Looking over he sees that Even has, indeed, fallen asleep, his hand still wrapped around his phone, fallen to his chest, like he was doing something on it when he started going unconscious. 

It’s the most endearing thing Isak has ever seen.

“The others are down in the common room,” Jonas says, still whispering. “Having a beer, you know, before we go out to eat later. I was going to join, after telling you.”

Still a little distracted by Even, Isak nods.

“Do you want to come?”

He looks back to Jonas. When he does he finds Jonas smiling at him, something bemused in his eyes that makes Isak roll his eyes, and Jonas grin. 

“Nah,” he says, then. “I’m gonna stay here for a bit, I think.”

“Okay.”

“Come get us before you go out to eat?”

“Sure,” Jonas says, nodding, and reaches up to squeeze his shoulder. “See you later, then.”

“Yeah, see you later,” Isak says, and watches it as he leaves. 

It’s warm, here, so he just changes into boxers and nothing else before he crawls over Even and into the bed, trying to be careful as he makes his way to the empty spot between Even and the wall. After the mattress has dipped with his weight, Even groans a little, and shifts. Trying not to disturb him, Isak catches his phone and puts it somewhere where it won’t fall down and break on the floor. 

“Shh,” he says. “It’s just me.”

“Is it dinner time?” Even asks, voice groggy and not opening his eyes.

“No,” Isak says. “Not for a while. You can go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Even says. He’s still not opened his eyes but, after a moment, he turns to face Isak, reaching out for him in what is almost certainly nothing but instinct, and tugs him in closer, and Isak is so overwhelmed with it, sometimes; loving him. “You’ll stay?”

“Mm,” Isak says, reaching up to hold him, back, burying his head in the crook of his neck. “I’ll stay.”

They fall asleep like that, in each other’s arms, in a foreign city, and Isak has never felt safer than this.

**August 14th 2017**

It’s August, and Isak’s mum has relapsed.

He doesn’t even look at Even as he crawls into bed. Just crumbles into it, exhaustion seeping into every part of him, bones so weak it feels like the marrow has been sucked out of them. Without saying anything he pulls the duvet up to his chin and lies with his back to the room. Closing his eyes.

A moment later, the mattress dips.

“Please don’t touch me,” Isak says. He’ll cry if Even does, and he doesn’t want to cry. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” The mattress stays dipped. “Can I stay, though?”

 _Dammit_. Isak has to look up to the white wall in front of him as he waits for the lump in his throat to pass. Then:

“Yeah.”

It comes out weak.

Even stays. He stays and he stays and he stays until Isak turns around and turns into him, anyway, and then he comes down to the mattress, too, and waits to pull Isak into his arms until Isak reaches out for him.

It’s not even tonight he keeps replaying in his head. It’s not the way she looked at him with fear in her eyes, so wrapped up in the delusion she was having that she seemed to have forgotten that they’re mother and son, thinking, instead, that he was out to get her. 

No. 

What he keeps replaying is the way she looked a few months ago when he and Even came to visit and she told them about the night school she’d enrolled into, trying to take her life back into her own hands now that she was better. What he keeps replaying is the way she’d joked with them, and been _funny_ , the way she’d teased him about smoking, the way she’d hugged him before they’d left.

What he keeps replaying is the way she’d felt like his mother again.

“I miss her,” he says, desperate, and gives up on not crying, because it won't work anyway. Nothing he could do would work, now. “I miss her so much. She’s right there but she’s not, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t even have a proper conversation with her. And she’s my mum.” He sniffs. Even’s shirt is getting wet with his tears. “She’s my mum. I just want her to be my mum.”

“Isak–”

“And instead she doesn’t even know who I am.”

“ _Baby_.”

Even holds him so tightly it feels like he’s trying to save Isak from breaking.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m grieving her,” Isak says, and Even whimpers something sad, like he’s crying, too. “Sometimes I feel like she’s dead.”

“Baby,” Even says, touching his hair just like his mother used to do it, and it’s not until then that Isak really starts crying. Even keeps holding him, as he does. 

It’s a long time before it stops.

That night, he doesn’t sleep at all.

**September 18th 2017**

It’s September, and Isak can’t sleep.

It doesn’t happen often anymore, and maybe everyone, really, would have felt like that if they were put in the situation he was in last year. It happens sometimes, though. This time, however, Even can’t sleep either.

For the thousandth time that night, Even turns over. Onto his stomach, this time, although he never sleeps like that, and the way he does it so without care that the mattress bounces with his movements tells Isak that he’s at the end of his rope.

Isak is, too. Unlike usually, his primary emotion isn’t concern over Even not sleeping but annoyance that he won’t fucking lie still. 

Even rolls over again.

“Will you just,” Isak says. “Stop moving?”

“Hm?”

“You’re making so much noise, and the mattress keeps bouncing, and–” Even opens one eye to watch him, frowning and looking bemused at the same time – “If you don’t stop rolling over all the time my head is literally going to explode.”

“Literally?”

Isak groans. At this point, Even is grinning about it.

“It’s not funny,” Isak says. “You’re so annoying right now. And–” 

Even is still smiling, eyebrows raised, now. 

“You keep fucking getting up and going to the kitchen, too, turning on the faucets which is not very silent, by the way, what’s up with that? Have you just gone fucking insatiable for water all of a sudden?”

Even giggles, just a little bit.

“It’s not _funny_.”

“I’m sorry,” Even says. “It’s a little bit funny.”

“No!” Isak says and, pulling the duvet with him and up to his chin, turns to his other side so Even is facing his back. “Just stop moving.”

“Okay,” Even says, sounding like he’s still smiling, and Isak huffs.

“Okay,” he says, tugging the duvet up to his shoulders again as he settles into his pillow better, still annoyed. 

“Isak?”

“Hm?”

“Can I touch you?”

Isak sighs. And maybe it’s a little bit pathetic how quickly Even can make all of this seep out of him; all of the frustration and all of the tension, until his muscles are going pliant again.

“Mm,” he says, and a moment later Even is scooting over, wrapping an arm around him and tugging him in against his chest, slotting his knees up behind Isak’s, face pressed into the top of his hair. Another moment later, and Isak is the one turning over on the mattress so he’s facing Even again, slotting one thigh in-between his legs, wrapping an arm around his waist, and burying his head in Even’s neck. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Hm.” Isak glances up at him, lifting his chin to ask for a kiss which Even, smiling a little, leans down to get him. “Still.”

“Isak,” Even says. “If I minded you being a bit grumpy sometimes then I never would have fallen in love with you.”

Isak rolls his eyes, but he can still feel himself blushing a bit.

“Stop being nice to me when I’m being an asshole,” he says. “Have you never trained a dog?” Even laughs. “That’s not how you do it.”

“Okay,” Even says. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

“Okay.”

They smile. Sighing a little, Isak turns back into Even’s chest. Even cards a hand through his hair.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Isak asks. "You were off work, right?"

"Yeah. I was thinking of going to the park and doing some sketching for once, you know? Mikael thought he might want to come."

"Ooh. Nice."

"Yeah."

"Do you want to go to go do one of the six o'clock classes in the gym? Maybe boxing?"

"To tire us out, so this won't happen again?"

Isak chuckles. "Yeah," he says. "Exactly."

"Okay," Even says, and Isak glances up at him to ask for a kiss, another one, which he gets, as Even rubs his back a little, too. "Let's do it."

“Okay," Isak says, lying back on his chest and closing his eyes. "Let's do it."

"Hm," Even says. "I love you, you know."

Isak smiles.

"You love me?" he says. "Even right now, you love me?"

"Mm," Even says. "Over and over I love you."

Glancing up at him, Isak keeps smiling. "Over and over?" he asks.

"Minute by minute. You know, it's an action and a commitment and a choice and all of that, and..."

"You'll keep chosing me?"

"Yeah."

So maybe Isak gives up on trying to sleep and crawls into his lap instead, hugging him close because he doesn't know how he got this _lucky_ , because it's so hard to say these things in a way where Even will understand the devotion with which he feels them, because he just wants to be near. Because he's longing for him, whole body and chest relaxing when he's close and begging to be close when he's not. Because he loves him, too. Over and over.

So maybe it's a while before they sleep. There are other, just as profound ways, to share a bed.

**October 12th 2017**

It’s October, and Isak has no trouble sleeping.

It’s a Sunday morning, one of the first in a while that they’ve both had all to themselves, and October has been a busy month. Even has started uni. Isak has gotten a job. Their lives don’t intertwine as much as they used to, anymore. 

Actually, Isak has been awake for a while, or at least only doing the kind of sleeping that you slip in and out of, halfway between the land of dreaming and being awake. 

Even has, too. When he turns around from where Isak was spooning his back to face Isak instead, the both of them hum, just a little. 

“Hm,” Even says. “You awake?”

“Mm,” Isak confirms. And stays in his grasp without saying anything else, eyes still closed. Breathing still calm, and skin still touching Even’s skin up under Even’s shirt. Even does, too.

Half an hour or so later Even shifts out of his grasp to pull his t-shirt off.

“What are you doing?” Isak mumbles.

“Too warm.”

“Hm.”

When Even comes back into his space it’s with a naked chest and a naked back, and Isak lets his palm roam all over the latter as he dips down, opening his eyes for just a moment, to press a few open-mouthed kisses to the top of Even’s chest, warm skin meeting warm skin. When his tongue flicks over Even’s nipple, Even sighs, and turns to his back. 

Isak keeps touching him, then, hands roaming over his chest, now, as he keeps working on his nipples with his mouth, lazy and quiet and hot until Even’s breaths have gone all heavy for him. 

When Even’s thighs fall apart Isak touches him there, too, beaming up at Even who’s smiling down at him, too, breathing heavier and heavier as his cheeks turn pink. going pliant in Isak’s hands for once, instead of it being the other way around. 

“Morning,” he says, after, and they both grin. And then, when Even’s returned the favour, they go back to sleep. 

**November 25th 2017**

It’s November, and they’re at Even’s parents’ place.

“You know,” Isak says, on his way up the ladder of Even’s bed that complains, violently, under his weight. “I don’t actually want to know the answer to this, so don’t reply, but how the fuck did you and Sonja ever have sex–” Even grins. “If all you had was this noisy as fuck bed.”

“Sometimes they weren’t home,” Even says, and Isak sends him a look as he crawls up to him and dumps himself on the pillow.

“I said,” he says. “That I didn’t want to know.”

Even snorts. 

“Hm,” he says, turning to his side so they’re facing each other. “You realise it’s a year ago since the two of us had sex for the first time?”

“I do,” Isak says, and Even grins.

“Mm.” He tugs Isak in closer, slotting his thigh between Isak’s legs. “So is this our anniversary, then?”

“No,” Isak says.

“No?” Even raises his brows. “You like the ninth better?”

“Actually,” Isak says. “I like the morning. The tenth, you know.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Isak nods. “I feel like that’s when we committed ourselves, you know. To each other. With everything out in the open and all.”

This time, when Even smiles, it’s fond. “Makes sense,” he says.

“Hm?”

“Mm-hm.” Leaning in first, so their noses touch, Even kisses him. Cupping his cheek, Isak kisses him back, and has them stay there for a while.

“Anyway,” he says, afterwards. “Today was nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Isak nods. At this point, Even is reaching up to card a hand through his hair, and he chases the touch with closed eyes. Content. “I like your parents.”

He does. He likes them a lot, and he likes when they hang out with them, and things are going better with his own family, too, and his mum, but it's still nice to be a part of something, now, that's a bit more uncomplicated. Because he is a part of it, now. Because they've taken him in, invited him into their lives. Because he's beginning to think of Even's family as his own family, too. 

“They have some great baby pictures of me, that’s for sure,” Even says, and grins when Isak chuckles. Keeps touching his hair. Goes soft. “They think we’re going to get married, you know.”

“Aren’t we?” Isak says. Together, they raise their brows at each other. “Big fucking wedding, and all?”

Even rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says. Isak grins.

“Hm.”

They look at each other. Then:

“So how old do you want to be, then?” Even asks.

“Old?”

“When I propose?”

Again, Isak laughs. Because it’s funny. And because he’s so damn _happy_ it can’t not spill out of him. Because, every single day, he falls more and more in love.

“Twenty-two,” he says, and the reason he has an answer so quickly is that he’s already thought of it.

“Twenty-two?” Even says. Brows raised. “Like Taylor Swift?”

Huffing, Isak rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. He’s always smiling.

“Shut up,” he says.

“I love you.”

Looking into each other’s eyes, they both grin. 

“I love you.”

They smile. They kiss. And when they fall asleep it’s in each other’s arms, like Isak hopes it will never stop being. Like Isak loves. 

Like it always is.

**December 10th 2017**

“So,” Even says, the morning of the tenth when they wake up together, already smiling, holding up his hand as if for a high-five. “One year down.”

Smiling, Isak hits his hand, revelling in the sound it makes, before he intertwines their fingers.

“One year down,” he says. “The rest of them to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i'd love it if you told me your thoughts in the comments?
> 
> also, you know. if you're not already doing it you should consider following along with my daily christmas advent calendar fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882426?view_full_work=true)


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